What We Do
At the foot of the old mountain whose rocky peak caught the morning sunlight, the rust-red soil fell open. It was being pushed aside in a soft crumble by the steel plate nailed to the wooden plow pulled by two gigantic brahma bulls joined at the neck by a hand-carved yoke. They pushed forward and the plow cleaved. It appeared as effortless as drawing a toothpick through soft butter. But sweat dripped from beneath the worn hat of the farmer who held the plow grip and guided its path through the uneven earth. He breathed hard, coloring the morning stillness with a rich and varied stew of curses and grunts in an endless effort to cajole the oxen to continue pulling the toothpick.
Behind him followed another man, barefooted, who dropped a few corn seeds mixed with black beans into the furrow, covered them with his foot in a fluid motion, took a stride, and repeated the action. With lucky rains, the field of red soil would be shaded by fresh green leaves in a month. And then the stew-brewing plowman would come back and drive his stolid beasts down the rows again, upturning and covering the weeds coming up around the stalks and giving the young corn and beans an advantage in the race for sunlight. By August the corn would be tall, by November it would be dry in the field, golden leaves shaking and whispering in the cool fall winds, the beans in the dried pods turning from dark green to purple, then black with little white belly buttons.
Throughout this timeless cycle of corn, the farmers would rise early to do their work, tilling and cultivating, fending off weeds, and tipping their hats to shade themselves from the sun. Finally, when the seeds, rain, and soil had fulfilled their blessings, large groups of kin and neighbors would come out to the fields, pluck the ears of corn off the dried stalks, and toss them into the cane baskets strapped to their backs, harvesting these many months of sunlight collected in the kernels of white, yellow, blue, and red corn.
Good work, hard work, endless work was this labor of teasing food from seeds and earth and the baptisms of the clouds. But if mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters did not rise early each day to turn that corn into tortillas, tamales, and atole, those beans into stews and savory fillings, and then carry them to the fields at mid-morning to feed these men with red clay under their nails, there would be no planting nor harvest. The women pulse down from the village in their bright floral scarves wearing hand embroidered blouses hidden beneath lace and satin tops. Following down the many twisting trails, branching like blood vessels energized by their visit to the heart, and with baskets, bags, and pots under arm and balanced on their heads, they leave tendrils of delicious scents behind them as they go. Hot food made by hand from corn grown right here, seasoned with chilies and chicken and toasted pumpkin seeds, mixed with roasted tomatoes and garlic. The dogs follow at their heels, snouts raised to the irresistible threads of invisible flavor pouring forth and the dream of what will be left when the men have finished their chewing and snorting under the scraggly shade trees on the edge of the fields.
Cycles of sun and rain and moons and the shared effort of bringing in one more year’s worth of corn and beans. This is what marks the rhythm of each day
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This tale is an excerpt from Oaxaca Stories in Cloth. Thrums Press 2016. Eric Mindling
Elvira Hernandez, San Barolome Quialana, Oaxaca.
The making of food for many mouths. San Barolome Quialana